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独立游戏开发者探讨F2P模式的可行性

发布时间:2012-08-30 17:14:35 Tags:,,,

作者:John Polson

本月话题为免费游戏(以下简称F2P)。无论你是否喜欢F2P,它已逐渐覆盖整个电子游戏行业,无论是浏览器、移动设备还是家庭主机上,随处可见它的身影。在制作F2P游戏时,独立开发者需要包含或者避免哪些元素?独立开发者可以做出哪些不同举动?

free(from games)

free(from games)

Mike Rose:F2P非常神奇——实际上,大量事例已证明这一特点。如果你玩过《Tribes: Ascend》或者《英雄联盟》,你就知道这些免费游戏并非让用户感到不快或受到操控,因为微交易不会阻碍你的游戏进程,影响整个游戏。

不幸的是,大多数免费游戏并非如此,游戏间隙会浪费你大量的等待时间(除非你采用付费方式),或者是数天数周的时间重复同个进程。这些“游戏”毫无乐趣可言,而让你的强迫性驱使你去玩。我们在游戏中到达一定境界时总会抑制不住自己,想去看看究竟会发生什么情况,即使实现这个目标的过程非常刻板。

我希望,未来免费游戏开发者可以迅速转变耗时策略,向实际乐趣靠拢。你知道吗?如果你提供了我喜爱的免费游戏,我可能会愿意从中购买一些有价值的商品。从独立领域所出现的创新行为来看,我由衷地相信免费游戏的重大进展会首先体现在独立领域。

Konstantinos Dimopoulos:(Gnome)虽然我并不认为自己是免费游戏及微交易的专家,但我清晰地认识到要在免费游戏同盈利之间找到平衡点确实存在风险和难度。

比如,提供太多免费内容容易让消费变得无意义,然而免费内容过少会挫败玩家游戏的激情。就在几天前,一款成功且下载量庞大的iOS游戏开发者告诉我,大多数的玩家只是单纯享受核心/免费游戏数小时,然后不愿购买应用内置的升级版……

按照这位开发者的说法,很明显,应用内置购买的游戏货币可以解锁关卡,从而促进游戏进程的简单化,或者有助于进程更加流畅。

另一方面,主流MMORPGs已经证明,你可以将整个游戏设置为免费模式,只是在装备配件或者额外内容上收取费用,然而,你确实需要建立牢固的社区以及游戏机制,让玩家心甘情愿地投入资金和时间。

当然,你也可以遵循《FarmVile》的运营方式,让玩家购买毫无意义的商品。

Danny Cowan:Imangi工作室的《Temple Run》以及Halfbrick工作室的《Jetpack Joyride》提供了有价值的设计经验,可以运用于制作大量的免费游戏。

1.游戏需充满乐趣,且不带购买需求。许多免费游戏宣称购买虚拟商品可减轻游戏乏味性或者加速游戏进程。通常情况是,这些功能是游戏一开始就应该解锁的关键机制。如果你的游戏不够有趣,可以迅速吸引玩家,那么他们也不会指望通过付费来增添游戏的趣味性。

无需花费一毛钱,《Temple Run》和《Jetpack Joyride》就能为我们带来无限的乐趣,无需购买升级版本,这两款游戏提供的核心玩法就能让我们体会到了完整功能。

2.应用内置消费功能应增添游戏的趣味性。《Jetpack Joyride》包含的一系列部件可以通过游戏内的货币购买。游戏在没有这些部分的前提下仍具有可玩性,可是玩家每次使用它们都能提升令人满意的性能。

《Temple Run》也以相似方式运行,提供可解锁的目标和倍增器,可以增加用户的更多游戏动机。

3.千万别让微交易代替整个游戏。一些免费游戏会出售特权,即到达目标的捷径。不可在此方面做得太过分:购物是为了完成游戏,而不是替代游戏进程。如果玩家在游戏中采用捷径,那么当他们实现所有目标时,他们还需要继续付费吗?

《Temple Run》及《Jetpack Joyride》明智地限制了游戏内货币的购买功能,而不是允许玩家购买所有特权。这也提升了玩家对自己所赚取货币的认知价值。

4.游戏需实现平衡。千万不要使用“花钱获胜”的模式。《Temple Run》及《Jetpack Joyride》的升级版只是暂时提升优势,但不会彻底破坏游戏平衡性,玩家还需具备一定水平的技能才能通关。如果一个购买功能就能免除对玩家的技能要求,那么你的游戏确实很有问题。

Cassandra Khaw:免费游戏的有趣之处在于,它在一定程度上易于让人接受,但同时也常让人厌恶。Zynga带动了近些年免费游戏的发展。你可以做些事情让F2P游戏的理念更合用户的胃口。

首先,别太荒谬。这是多少人会忘记的重点。如果不花钱就不让升级,这种游戏就不能算是“免费的”。想进入第五关卡?好的。重复体验前四道关卡三百次。不想做完所有单调乏味的事?掏出你的钱包。可恶。这会激起用户和评论者的怒气。我评论过大量的iOS游戏,当我涉及这一领域时,我几乎抓狂了。

在平衡问题上处理得当的要属Nimblebit。你得到可以加速建设的东西。你无需购买任何物品。你只需进入游戏中。同时,由于游戏迷人、制作精良,而且不存在“让你的朋友加入,你就无需付费”这种提示信息,这可能更易获得用户的支持。

或者,你可以制作一个阀门,向用户提供他们所需的物品(只是更多些)。《DOTA 2》玩家在每次战役后总有机会获得物品。绝密道具?确定?普通道具?当然。你几乎可以在商店中免费获得你想要的任何物品。然而,你也有机会赢得各种箱子,但只能用钥匙打开,而且,钥匙需要购买才可以。这主要是为了激发玩家的好奇心,而这种做法效果极佳。

John Polson:我玩的游戏还未加入F2P模式;相反,我却看到了许多DLC。我不介意浏览器或者iDevice游戏出现广告(甚至在游戏场景中设置广告牌),只要它们不要具有太明显的干扰性。

F2P游戏提供的跳跃功能或者助攻能力在我看来没什么不妥,只要游戏挑战没有这些功能时仍然不失公平性,任务不会太耗时就成。可是,这种“为花钱获胜”模式只会让人不快。你应该让我喜欢上你的设计理念(艺术风或者叙事风格),那样我才会有购买虚拟商品的欲望,而不是强制我消费或者阻止我到达最后关卡。

我希望,独立游戏领域多接触和尝试F2P模式,利用现实世界或虚拟道具进行交叉推广。例如,在F2P中植入与我的Vita有关的AR交易卡,或者毛绒玩具。我打赌Cass在这一点上会认同我的理念!我也认为Meat Boy或者Issac的虚拟皮肤有助于提升产品销量。这可能适用于含有《军团要塞2》内容的非Valve游戏。

免费出租如何?这可以让我试验哪些内容可行,并从中选择能够提升体验的内容。将F2P游戏同付费游戏模式绑定又如何呢?例如将一款F2P游戏中购买的道具,用于解锁另一款游戏中的一个或多个DLC。这一策略可以只在一个开发者的程序库内执行,也可以在与另一开发者游戏的交叉推广中实现。

如果所有这些都失败了,那就去求教经济学家吧。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Ask IndieGames: What makes a good free-to-play game?

by John Polson

Ask IndieGames is a monthly feature that takes a range of topics relating to indie gaming and development and poses them as a question to the editorial staff.

This month’s topic is free-to-play (F2P) games. Love them or loathe them, F2P games are gradually taking the video game industry by storm, in the web browser, on mobile devices and now even on home consoles. What elements should indie developers look to include or avoid when building a F2P game? What can indie developers do differently?

Mike Rose: Free-to-play gaming could be something amazing – in fact, in numerous examples, it already is. If you’ve played games like Tribes: Ascend or League of Legends, you’ll know that free-to-play isn’t as nasty and manipulative as elsewhere, with microtransactions that don’t affect the game in such a way that your progress is impeded otherwise.

Unfortunately, the majority of free-to-play games aren’t like this at all, instead opting for huge waiting times between plays (unless you pay cash) or days and weeks of doing the same thing over and over again (sped up by – you guessed it – paying cash). None of these ‘games’ are really enjoyable at all, but rather, play on our obsessive nature. We *have* to see what happens if we manage to get a certain way through the game, even if getting there is incredibly formulaic and full.

For the future of free-to-play games, I hope that developers rapidly start shifting away from these time-sink tactics and into the realms of actual fun. And you know what? If you offer me free gameplay that I enjoy, I may well feel like purchasing a few microtransactions here and there is worth it. With the innovation coursing through the indie scene, I sincerely believe that the breakthroughs in free-to-play will come from indies.

Konstantinos Dimopoulos:(Gnome) Though I wouldn’t consider myself an expert on free-to-play games and microtransactions, I am pretty aware of the fact that this can be a risky and difficult to balance way of monetizing ones game.

Offering, for example, too much content for free can easily make any sort of purchase pointless, whereas offering too little can frustrate gamers. It was only a few days ago that the developers of a successful and widely downloaded iOS game were telling me that most people simply enjoyed their core/free game for a few hours and them failed to grab its well priced and hefty in-app expansions…

Apparently and according to the same devs, in-app purchases of some sort of in-game currency that unlocks levels, makes the game easier or just provides with a bit of help seem to work better. At least on iOS I’d add.

On the other hand and as major MMORPGs have proven, you could simply give the whole game away for free and only charge for cosmetic extras or extra content, but you’d really need a substantial community and a game that is both good and addictive enough for players to emotionally invest in.

Then again you could go the Farmville way and charge gamers for stuff that doesn’t really make sense. My tip for this case? Employ dark sorceries.

Danny Cowan: Imangi’s Temple Run and Halfbrick Studios’ Jetpack Joyride teach valuable design lessons that can apply to a majority of free-to-play titles.

1. Your game should be fun to play without requiring a purchase. Many free-to-play titles tease purchaseable features that eliminate tedium or speed along the game’s pacing. Often, these features are key mechanics that should have been unlocked at the game’s outset. If your game isn’t immediately fun enough to hook the player, they’re not going to want to spend money on it in the hopes that it will somehow become more fun.

Both Jetpack Joyride and Temple Run are fun to play without spending a dime, and both offer core gameplay that feels feature-complete without purchasing upgrades.

2. In-app purchases should make your game more fun to play. Jetpack Joyride includes a series of gadgets that can be purchased with in-game currency. The game is fully playable without them, but each time the player is able to use them during gameplay, the result is a satisfying performance boost. Temple Run works in a similar way, offering unlockable goals and multipliers that provide added gameplay incentive.

3. Don’t make microtransactions a substitute for playing your game. Some free-to-play titles sell perks that basically act as shortcuts to goals that could be reached during free gameplay.

Be careful not to overdo this; purchases should complement your game, not replace the need to play it. If players take shortcuts through your game, why should they continue to give you money once they run out of goals to achieve?

Temple Run and Jetpack Joyride smartly limit purchases to in-game currency, rather than allowing players to buy perks outright. This also adds perceived value to the currency that players earn during gameplay.

4. Your game should be balanced. The “pay-to-win” model sucks. Don’t use it. The upgrades in Jetpack Joyride and Temple Run give temporary boosts, but they’re hardly game-breaking, and players still need to possess some degree of skill in order to make the most of them. If an optional purchase eliminates the need for player skill, your game is effectively broken.

Cassandra Khaw: Free to Play games are interesting because they’re sort of tolerated but loathed all at the same time. Thanks to companies like Zynga, they’ve pretty much become commonplace these days. That said, there are certain things that you can do to make the idea of an F2P game more palatable to your audience.

First and foremost? Don’t be absurd. It’s amazing as to how many people can forget that. Don’t call it a ‘free’ game but make levelling almost impossible without a cash purchase. Want to advance to level 5? Great. Reiterate the first four levels three hundred times. Don’t want to sit through all the drudgery? Hand over your wallet. This sucks. It tends to make people angry and reviewers livid. I do a lot of iOS games reviewing and this drives me insane when I run into it.

A good example of a company that has done it right is Nimblebit. It’s a nice balance of things. You get stuff that you can use to speed up construction and things. You don’t really have to purchase anything. You can just get sucked into it. At the same time, because it’s so charming, well-tailored, and happily bereft of BUG YOUR FRIENDS TO PLAY IN EXCHANGE FOR NOT HAVING TO PAY MONEY’ messages, it’s likely to inspire the urge to purchase something as a show of support anyway.

Alternatively, you could do a Valve and give your audience everything they want (and just a little bit more). In DOTA 2, there’s always the chance to get something after every match.

Mythical items? Sure? Common items? Definitely. You can get almost everything in the store for free. However, there’s also the chance that you might win chests and chests can only be opened with keys which, in turn, can only be purchased. It’s basically baiting the gamer’s inner curiosity and it works massively well.

John Polson: The F2P model and games I play haven’t mixed much; I instead see a lot of DLC (ugh). I don’t mind browser or iDevice games with ads (even billboards in game scenery), as long as they stay unobtrusive.

F2P games that offer skip functions or boost-assists are also fine by me, as long as challenges without them are fair and tasks aren’t too time-consuming. However, pay-to-win just feels off-putting. Make me love your design decisions (artistic and narrative) so I want to buy your virtual merchandise, as opposed to pressuring me into purchases or preventing me from reaching end credits.

I hope indies experiment in the F2P area more, like cross-promoting with real world or virtual items. An F2P with “real world” AR trading cards for my Vita? Yes, please! An F2P with plushies? I bet Cass is with me here! I also think a Meat Boy or Isaac virtual skin would help more than hurt sales. It seems to work for non-Valve games with Team Fortress 2 content.

How about Free2Rent? Restrict me by letting me sample what something does and get attached to how it enhances my experience. And how about blending F2P games with paid-purchase games? F2P items purchased in one game could contain the key to unlocking one or more DLC in another game. This tactic could work across the library of just one developer or with cross-promoting another developer’s game.

If all else fails, hire an economist.(source:indiegames


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